HarmonyOS's first anniversary, will it give us new surprises?

A year ago, Richard Yu released HarmonyOS at HDC2019. Hongmeng in Chinese may mean "creation of the world", and the closest English word is Genesis. But Hongmeng is too difficult to pronounce in Chinese pinyin, so we named it HarmonyOS, hoping to bring more peace and convenience to the world.

Today, the world is still not peaceful enough, and all IoT devices are still not convenient enough, so we look forward to the arrival of HarmonyOS 2.0, which will open up a new world for China's IoT industry. From September 10th to 12th, HDC2020 in Songshan Lake, Dongguan, has attracted more attention and expectations for special reasons that need not be mentioned. Even the VIP tickets of 5,298 yuan have been sold out. According to the HDC schedule officially announced by Huawei, HarmonyOS is undoubtedly the focus of the spotlight. After all, HarmonyOS is no longer just Huawei's own mission.

Whether optimistic or pessimistic, people from all camps will want to know more details about HarmonyOS, and HarmonyOS will face a rigorous test. We might as well make four bold predictions about Harmony 2.0.

Interconnection: The end of silos

It seems that everyone is obsessed with HarmonyOS replacing Android in mobile phones, but just a few days ago, Yu Chengdong once again told the media that HarmonyOS will not appear in mobile phones this year, but there is a broader world outside of mobile phones.

At present, the penetration rate and popularity of smart home devices in my country are increasing rapidly. The most important reason is that manufacturers have added interactive interfaces, enhanced processor performance and connectivity for the sake of intelligence. However, it is somewhat ironic that these devices named "smart" are still isolated islands in terms of data. Many people buy them and continue to use them as independent products, and have not experienced the convenience brought by true intelligence.

The main reason for the islandization is that terminal manufacturers are independent and run their own systems, and there is no good interaction and control center. At present, most smart homes use mobile phones as control centers, but the networking operation process of devices is very complicated, so many users do not have smart devices connected to the Internet at home. At the same time, various APPs and complicated control methods are daunting. HarmonyOS, which is based on distributed technology, can make device networking more convenient, and the connection between devices is also more convenient. So can HarmonyOS 2.0 break the current dilemma of the Internet of Things?

Leapfrog connection: Can HarmonyOS penetrate the IoT industry?

Connection is the core of the Internet of Things. Since 2020, the commercialization of Wi-Fi 6 has begun to accelerate, and many manufacturers including Huawei have launched WiFi-6 routers. However, we can see that most domestic routers are modified by open source operating systems, or directly use foreign operating systems. At present, most of the mainstream WiFi-6 chips in the world come from American companies, but Huawei also has its Lingxiao WiFi-loT chip. Combined with the full industrial chain layout of chips-operating systems-terminal devices, it is predicted that Harmony2.0 will be more convenient and easy to use, and it can also become more stable through internal iterations.

The second important wireless standard is Bluetooth. With the popularization of smart devices such as wearable medical and smart lighting in the home, Bluetooth has become more and more important, so HarmonyOS 2.0 is likely to support standards such as Bluetooth 5.0. In addition, when the smart screen becomes the core interactive device of the smart home, the transmission distance of ordinary Bluetooth cannot meet the scenario of full coverage of the home. Huawei's original Super Bluetooth has a transmission distance of more than 100 meters and stronger signal penetration, which enables it to better manage devices in the home and bring a better experience to smart home and smart lighting. Of course, it has to support its own things, so it is speculated that Super Bluetooth may be the standard configuration of HarmonyOS 2.0.

In the era of Huawei's All in 5G, home IoT is also an important part of its 5G layout. HarmonyOS must provide corresponding support to meet the layout of the last mile in the 5G era.

HarmonOS 2.0 may also include other technologies including Thread, Sub-1GHz, ZigBee, but these are niche markets. At present, the most important thing for HarmonyOS is to solve the support of mainstream wireless standards. I believe it will show us a powerful image that supports many new communication protocols such as WiFi6, Super Bluetooth, 5G transmission, etc.

Lightweight architecture: embedded in the market everywhere

With the explosion of edge computing, more devices have intelligent edge computing units. HarmonyOS must seize this opportunity better and cooperate with various edge computing devices to achieve wider coverage in the IoT field.

The coming era of the Internet of Everything will see more miniaturized and micro-sized smart devices. These devices often prioritize low power consumption, small size, and low cost, so they do not require powerful computing power like mobile phones and laptops. Single-chip microcomputers can fully meet such applications. With the increasing diversity and more powerful performance of single-chip microcomputers, they are being adopted by more and more IoT devices.

Therefore, cooperation with MCU manufacturers will be a necessary step for HarmonyOS, and it will also be a very difficult step. And this kind of cooperation requires the provision of development boards, chips, and hardware configurations. I believe that after the release of HarmonyOS 2.0, more and more domestic MCU manufacturers will announce cooperation with HarmonyOS. At HDC2020, how many MCU manufacturers will be natively equipped with HarmonyOS, and how many chip manufacturers will support MCU manufacturers?

Distributed technology: HarmonyOS’s killer feature

Distributed capability is one of the core competitiveness of Harmony OS. Last year, Yu Chengdong introduced the advantages of distributed soft bus in detail. The distributed architecture includes many capabilities such as task scheduling, data management, hardware capability virtualization, distributed soft bus, etc. It separates the underlying implementation from application development, allowing developers to develop cross-terminal distributed applications with lower difficulty. At present, all mainstream OS architectures are centralized, that is, the mobile phone OS and the smart TV OS are independent of each other, and the operation of the mobile phone will not affect the operation of the APP on the smart TV, unless the data saved in the background is changed. Huawei's distributed OS can realize the collaborative processing of applications, that is, your operations on the mobile phone can be reflected on the APP interface of the smart TV at the same time. When the mobile phone closes the APP, the APP on the TV is also closed.

In full-scenario mode, interoperability will become a completely seamless experience, which is also a greater blessing for developers. Distributed technology solves the problem of multi-device experience coordination, connects more IoT devices to each other, breaks the limitations of the hardware capabilities of a single physical device, and the capabilities of different hardware can complement each other and enhance performance. Use software to define new product forms, break through the physical limitations of terminals, and truly bring a seamless experience of full-scenario smart life. A unified user experience for all scenarios, including "wireless connection, high bandwidth, low latency, low power consumption, and secure access", can all be achieved through a distributed architecture. This ability to share hardware and communicate data itself provides developers with endless imagination. So we are still very much looking forward to how distributed technology will be presented on HarmonyOS 2.0.

The future is promising

As usual, HDC always releases amazing hardware products, and the release of hardware equipped with HarmonyOS is also something everyone looks forward to.

As for the release of HarmonyOS 2.0, we are still very much looking forward to it bringing more new technologies, including support for more protocols, adaptation to more hardware, more applications, a more efficient kernel, a broader ecosystem and more friendly development tools, which is what everyone is concerned about and looking forward to.

HarmonyOS is bound to affect the market landscape of the Internet of Things, but just as we can see from the iceberg, today's Internet of Things is just the tip of the iceberg. As people continue to explore the Internet of Things and develop products under the iceberg, the Internet of Things will have a broader space, and HarmonyOS and Huawei will never stop moving forward.